Tempt the Stars (31 page)

The demon started to respond, but was cut off by the demon Mom had called Adra. “You may voice your concerns afterward, my lord. For now, let her speak.”

“It is not Asag’s ramblings that you need to fear,” she said. “Or others like him. It is those too timid to speak now, but who, when I am gone, will cloak their fear in the voice of reason. We will do as we did before, they will say. We will take refuge behind our walls, behind our locked and barred gates, and wait. It saved us once; why not again? And from enemies who may never return, or who if they do will not have the same skill as She Who Controls the Paths. They did not dare to hunt us before, in our own lands. They will not dare now. We are safe. . . ”

She trailed off, gentle mocking in her tone, and the room became deadly quiet.

“I come to tell you that you are not safe. You were only so before if you did not interest me. I could have taken any of you, anytime I pleased, and there are those now as powerful as I once was. They do not have my gift, no. But they have others. And they will use them.”

“Lies!” Asag exploded. “Lies! Who is the only one who hunted us, who used us, for whom we swore eternal hatred? Have you so quickly forgotten?”

“We have forgotten nothing,” Adra said. “And I have warned you once.”

At least, I thought that’s what he said. I could barely hear over my heartbeat anymore, I couldn’t feel my legs, and my whole body was trembling like I had a fever. I felt someone’s hand on my arm, clenching tight, but I couldn’t tell whose. Someone who was trying to keep me upright, but I was past caring. I didn’t need to be on my feet; I just needed this to be over. I just needed . . 

To give her time to finish.

Mother’s eyes swept the room, and there was no amusement in her voice now, no banter, no teasing. It was flat and uncompromising, the voice of an oracle in full control of her power. In spite of everything, it sent a wash of gooseflesh over my arms.

I wondered if anyone else realized; she wasn’t just talking anymore.

She was prophesying.

“You are poised on a razor’s edge. Join my daughter. Fight with her. Give her the incubus and whatever other help you can. For if you do not, there will come a time, very soon, when you will wish you had.”

Five minutes later, I was on a couch in the lobby, slightly steaming. If I was a cartoon, I’d have had a blackened face, hair standing straight on end, and wisps of steam floating out of my ears. And I wasn’t the only one.

“Well, that could have gone better.”

That was Caleb, mopping his face with an oversized handkerchief he’d pulled out of all that leather. His hair wasn’t standing on end because he didn’t have any, but his usually rich skin tone had an ashen cast, and his eyes were a little more open than technically necessary. If it had been anyone else, I’d have said he was flirting with a panic attack, only war mages didn’t.

Of course, they didn’t usually stand in front of a full session of the demon high council, either.

Not that we were anymore. I’d lost the connection, whatever it was, to Mom shortly after the room erupted in chaos. And not the good kind. The weird-vibrationsthat-made-my-skin-feel-like-it-was-about-to-come-offthe-bone kind, like we were in a giant drum and somebody had suddenly decided to beat the hell out of it. And then there had been the noise, which probably hadn’t been metallic shrieks and high-pitched squeals and elephant-like trumpets, but my brain had given up trying to make sense of this crap and had just started tossing random junk in there.

So yeah.

Could have gone better.

On the other hand, the vibrate-y, noisy stuff had caused me to retch and flop over. And collapsing into nothing, not even a floor because I still couldn’t feel it properly, just
nothing
, was something I could live without ever experiencing again. But the good news was, it had gotten us kicked out on our collective asses.

The bad news was, Pritkin hadn’t come with us.

I stared at the big double doors leading back into hell’s inner sanctum and, despite everything, had a sudden urge to run back in there. And I guess more than an urge, because the next thing I knew, I was halfway to my feet and Caleb’s arm was holding me back. “Not a chance,” he grumbled.

“I just want to listen—”

“To what?” he demanded. “The shrieking?”

“They won’t let you in anyway,” Casanova reminded me. “They said no humans in the deliberations.”

“Pritkin’s in there—”

“He’s the accused. That’s different.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of!”

“Here.” Casanova handed over his precious bottle of hell juice.

I blinked at him.

“You’re white as a sheet,” he said gruffly.

I took the bottle, a little gingerly. And okay, if I’d needed confirmation that things were bad, I’d just gotten it. Casanova was being nice to me.

We were so fucked.

I drank. People, or things, or things pretending to be people came and went, paying no attention to the three bums sprawled in the corner. Caleb kept glancing around, but not like he was tensing to fight. More like the bland familiarity of the lobby was reassuring to him.

It wasn’t doing a lot for me.

Long minutes passed.

“Maybe it was intended as a negotiation tactic,” Caleb suddenly blurted out.

I glanced over at him. He looked a little less freaked-out, but no happier. I knew the feeling.

Having time to think was a bitch.

“What?”

“You know,” he told me. “All of that stuff about the gods . . ”

I passed over the bottle. “You think Mom was lying?”

Caleb took a swig, and made a face. “I’m not saying that. We’ve already had one god show up, and the punk-ass kids of another. But she could have been exaggerating. She was bargaining with them, and in a negotiation, you always ask for more than you hope to get. We want Pritkin, so your mother asks for—”

“An army?” Casanova said incredulously. “A demon
army
?”

Caleb scowled. “I thought you were the one who thought that was a good idea. You spent half the damned walk into Rosier’s capital bitching about—”

“The fact that we could use some help with the war
we already have going
,” Casanova said, snatching his bottle back. “Not being informed that there’s an army of ravenous gods preparing to lay waste to the hells, and planning to use earth as a staging ground!”

He belted back a couple shots’ worth, all at one go.

“Well, forgive me for hoping it’s not true,” Caleb retorted. “As someone who’ll have to fight it!”

Casanova leaned over me to stare at him. “And the rest of us won’t? You think the gods are going to wipe out the war mages and just leave everyone else—”

“The Corps is the obvious target, yes. We’re the only ones with enough magic to oppose them—”

“Oh, please!” Casanova said fiercely. “If those things—did you see those things?—in there are shaking in their boots, what chance do you think you have?”

“Better than you think, or they’re expecting. The Corps isn’t the ragtag little group they remember—”

“Yes, which is why
the goddess who started your order
just said we’re screwed without the demons! Face it—if the gods get past that damned spell, we’re dead, we’re
all
—”

“Stop it,” I said, but no one was listening.

“Thus speaks the great military mind of a casino manager!” Caleb snapped.

“Who has lived long enough to have seen a few wars in his time,” Casanova snapped back. “And it’s never just the combatants who suffer—”

“I didn’t say it was—”

“And we both know it’s easier to run a staging ground if you don’t have to worry about sabotage!”

“Stop it!” I told him. But he didn’t.

“If I were them, I wouldn’t want anyone anywhere near my only doorway to this universe, not after what happened last time. Easier to kill us, kill the fey, hell, kill the humans, too. It’s not like they need them anymore if they’re invading the hells anyway—”

“They’d need them to feed their precious herd,” Caleb growled. “There’s no way they would—”

“If they want to feed their cows, they can do it with creatures like we saw on Rosier’s world. If even the incubi can control them, the gods’ll never have to worry about rebellion. They’ll never have to worry about any—” He broke off as I got up. Because it was either that or start screaming.

“Where are you going?” Casanova demanded.

“Somewhere else!”

“Cassie—”

“No,” I told him as he grabbed for my wrist. And missed, because he was drunker than he’d been in the bar. “I can’t, all right? I just—I
can’t
.”

“It’s okay,” Caleb told me. And then grimaced, because it wasn’t and we both knew it. “Just . . . sit back down.”

“I don’t want to sit down!”

“It’s not like you have a choice,” Casanova pointed out. “Where else are you going to go?”

I didn’t answer because I didn’t know. I just knew I couldn’t sit there and listen to them argue when there wasn’t a damned thing I could do about any of it. I was staggering with exhaustion, but I couldn’t sleep, either, not with Pritkin in there pleading for his life. And it didn’t look like there was enough left in that bottle to get me drunk.

I didn’t know what I wanted.

“I know how you feel,” Caleb said, and took my hand.

He didn’t grab it or yank on it or even trap it, which, in the state I was in, might have sent me over the edge. The fingers were slightly open, the hold loose. I could have pulled away at any time.

And so, perversely, I didn’t want to.

“I feel the same way,” he told me. “I’ve known John over fifteen years. He’s saved my ass half a dozen times, and I’ve returned the favor maybe half that many—”

“I think you might have evened the score today,” I said, a little unevenly.

“Maybe.”
If this works out
remained unsaid. “But there’s nothing I can do for him now. Except wait. They’ll have a decision when they have a decision, and John’s going to need us then. And we need to be here for him. All right?”

I nodded, because I suddenly couldn’t say anything. And let Caleb pull me back down on the sofa, or whatever it really was. I didn’t know, but it was comfortable, and then he pulled me onto his shoulder, which wasn’t. But I didn’t mind right then.

“Sorry,” Casanova said, which might not have meant anything. But then he handed me the bottle again.

“It’s okay,” I told him, looking at it blearily. “I think I’ve had enough.”

“No such thing,” he muttered, glancing around. And upended it.

*   *   *

I woke up on something hard. I tried punching it, because this pillow had seen better days. But it didn’t seem to help.

So I punched it again.

“Ow,” someone said mildly.

My eyes opened, and I found myself looking at something that might have been a knee. I blinked, and it came more into focus. Yes, it was a knee. A very dirty, denim-covered knee that also appeared to have been drooled on.

I raised myself up slightly. And realized why my pillow had been so damned hard. My head had been resting on someone’s thigh, and whoever it was hadn’t skipped leg day.

I turned my head the other way and saw a stomach. I frowned at it, which wasn’t fair, because it was a nice stomach. Flat and hard, and with the beginnings of the deep V of muscles sometimes called an Adonis belt above the loose top of the jeans.

But there was something wrong with it anyway. And that included the sculpted, lightly furred chest above. And the rocklike shoulders above that. And the face—

My body came upright abruptly. Maybe a little too abruptly, since the room did a lazy spin around me. But I didn’t care, because I’d finally realized the problem: the body was right, but the skin was wrong. Instead of Caleb’s rich mocha, it was pale and sun kissed and—

I grabbed one of those oversized shoulders and shook it as hard as I could, which meant I maybe jiggled it a little. “They released you?”

An eyebrow rose. And damn it! Everybody could do that but me.

“No,” Pritkin told me. “They’re in deliberations. They didn’t seem to feel they needed me for that.”

“Oh.” I sat back, waking the rest of the way up. And checking him over.

He looked okay. Well, actually that was a lie. “Okay” was a relative term considering where we were, and encompassed a lot of things. But he didn’t look any more beat up.

Unfortunately, that was about the only plus.

He hadn’t found any extra clothes to go with the dirty jeans, which were now also cut in several places, and scorched down one side, probably the result of the near miss on the rooftop. His hair, always terrible, was now extra Pritkin-y, meaning it would have put any self-respecting stylist on suicide watch. Although it matched his face, which was a stubbly mess, and his left eye, which was black and swollen, and his right arm, which was in a sling, and his ribs—

“You wouldn’t even get in the door at Rosier’s looking like that,” I told him, after a minute.

His lips pursed. “Should I worry that you sound pleased?”

“I do not!” That was ridiculous. “And I meant you look terrible.”

“Would you like a mirror?” he asked sweetly.

“No.”

I glanced around. We were still on the sofa, only someone had added a rattan privacy screen on one side, shielding us from the view of the rest of the lobby. That seemed to happen to me a lot.

I guess even hell has some standards.

Although Caleb, at least, was doing earth proud. He was standing by a pillar, arms crossed, eyes watchful, face back to its usual fuck-with-me-and-die expression, maybe kicked up an extra notch or two because of where we were. His knee-length leather duster was likewise looking sharp. Of course, it was war mage issue, meaning that it was less a coat than self-healing armor, knitting up any little boo-boos almost as soon as they happened. I suspected it might be self-cleaning, too, because he was suspiciously lacking in dirt.

Casanova, on the other, other hand, was bringing our average back down again, although less because of looks than attitude. He was still sprawled on the couch on my other side, and he must have finished off the bottle he was still clutching. Because his handsome face was pasty and crumpled, like his once-nice suit. And his eyes kept darting around the lobby blearily, as if trying to see through the bland beige glamourie.

Altogether, we were a sorry lot, and then my stomach growled plaintively. “Have I been out long?” I asked, tucking a limp strand of hair behind my ear. And wincing, because even that hurt.

“A few hours,” Pritkin told me. “You weren’t unconscious, just exhausted. We thought it best to let you sleep. It’ll likely be hours yet before we hear anything.”

I digested that. And, unfortunately, nothing else. My stomach spoke up again, more forcefully.

“Does this place have a coffee shop?”

“No,” he said, getting up, and grimacing. I guess I wasn’t the only stiff one. “But there’s a food cart next door. If I remember right, it’s one of the safe ones.”

“Safe?” Caleb frowned, like that word didn’t compute around here. “Am I misremembering the bunch of guys who just tried to kill us?”

“That was before we reached the council,” Pritkin said, and stretched, cracking his back. I tried that, too, because it sounded like it would feel awesome, but I was too bendy. I just flopped over. So I pretended to be touching my toes since I was already down there.

And, God, my toes. And the rest of my poor feet. Filthy, pedicure gone, cut and bruised and traces of hell gunk between the toes.

And after everything, the running and the fighting and the almost dying . . . that was what did it.

That was what finally had me tearing up.

Until a pair of honest-to-God flip-flops were dangled in front of my face.

I looked up. “How—”

“Shop around the corner,” Pritkin told me, about the time that I noticed his nice, clean, flip-flop-clad feet.

“You got a bath!” I accused, staring at them.

“Sponge.” He nodded at a discreet sign on a nearby wall. Which had an arrow pointing down a hall and a curly script that read
Bathrooms
.

And I realized that I had something else to take care of. “Be right back,” I told him, grabbing the shoes.

“Wait.” That was Caleb, staring at the sign suspiciously. “How do we know what’s in there?”

“What?”